It has been more than seven years since the anti-corruption and pro-democracy movements that swept across the Middle East and North Africa (the so-called Arab Uprisings or Arab Spring) drew global attention. While many of these movements have dissipated, conflicts in Syria and Yemen continue, devastating the countriesâ economies, polities, and societies. However, the two conflicts garner very different levels of attention from the global community. The Syrian conflict remains ongoing, a proxy war for powerful outside actors, with a continued outflow of Syrian civilians to neighboring countries and beyond; more than half of Syriaâs pre-war population has been killed or displaced by war (Mercy Corps 2018). Further, the use of chemical weapons and airstrikes by global and regional powers with a history of rivalry makes for attention-grabbing headlines. Thus, Syria remains at the forefront of global media and humanitarian attention. Yemen, on the other hand, is experiencing a similar degree of crisis for the population, has received similar international intervention, and, as of December 2017, has reached a record number of cholera cases, but has not been on the global mediaâs radar to the same degree as Syria. In fact, thousands of migrants from Somalia and Ethiopia, where drought and unemployment are rife, have fled to Yemen, ignorant of that countryâs conflict. In this book, we compare the different international responses to the internal conflicts in Syria and Yemen through an examination of the coverage each conflict has received by the media, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and international organizations (IOs). We explore and evaluate rival explanations for why the Syrian conflict has garnered so much more attention. Using this assessment, we then discuss why this differential attention matters in terms of international relations (IR) theory, international law, humanitarian response, and policy recommendations for responding to humanitarian crises.
Why Do Some Countries in Crisis Receive More International Attention?
Since the start of the so-called Arab Uprisings that began in Tunisia in December 2010, much has changed in the region, even while some regimes and patterns of power have remained relatively unscathed. Dictators were toppled in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt, while monarchies in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, and Morocco (among others) have remained solidly in power, albeit with some reforms, particularly in the case of Oman and Morocco. Although tensionsâand at times bloody conflictâhave continued in a number of Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries, the uprisings in Syria and Yemen have differed in scale and scope, with civil wars that have killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions of people (Connor 2016), and become internationalized through the interventions of external actors. Despite the outward similarities of the two conflictsâwith high civilian casualties, domestic fractionalization, the role of foreign extremists , and the manifestation of regional rivalries between Saudi Arabia and Iran in particular, albeit also increasingly between Israel and Iran at time of writingâSyria has received significantly more global public attention, whereas the conflict in Yemen has largely remained outside the headlines (Staff 2018). In this book, we examine international coverage of the two conflicts using data collected through Google GDelt as well as through content analysis of selected articles from NGOs, IOs, and news outlets. Our quantitative results show that, since 2010, much higher numbers of articles have been published about the conflict in Syria from many more countries than articles dealing with the conflict in Yemen. Our qualitative analysis reveals that articles have similarities in content, with emphasis on the scope and scale of the humanitarian issues in each conflict, begging the question as to why such a discrepancy in reporting exists and what it means in terms of how various actors respond to the two crises. Conventional wisdom and realist theories of IR might suggest that this has to do with great power interests (notably the US and Soviet Union/Russia ), the fact that Syria has long symbolized the heart of the Middle East and has been a leader of Arab nationalism, the number of displaced and killed Syrians, and the relative proximity of Syria to Europe. However, we question whether this alone explains the difference between the coverage of the two conflicts, since Yemenâs strategic location at the mouth of the Red Sea has long been valued by outside powers, and the US has a history of security interests in Yemen, particularly in regard to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. In examining coverage of the conflict we explore alternative explanations, such as identity politics, economic issues, and the relative weight and location of Yemeni and Syrian diasporas.
This book begins with a brief overview of the countries and their respective conflicts. Chapter 2 then explores how states use international humanitarian law (IHL) and associated frameworks to justify international involvement in domestic conflicts and humanitarian crises. Chapter 3 presents and discusses contending explanations from IR for why Syria might receive more attention than Yemen. Chapter 4 explains the use of data from Googleâs GDelt project to collect and analyze media coverage of the two conflicts between 2010 and 2017, documenting the findings graphically and narratively. Chapter 5 presents the results of the qualitative analysis of news articles on sampled events from Syria and Yemen. Chapter 6 presents a discussion on the theoretical and policy implications of the data analysis.
Context: Current Conflicts in Syria and Yemen
Both Yemen and Syria have suffered tremendous losses in the past years of conflict. For Syria, the violence that began in 2011 has claimed an estimated 400,000 lives, with more than five million Syrian refugees (Syria Regional Refugees Response 2018) and over half of the population having been displaced (OCHA 2017). In fighting in Raqqa in May 2017, over 23,000 people were displaced in a four-day period. The economic impact of the conflict has been similarly devastating. As of April 2016, the estimated impact of the war was 400% of Syriaâs 2010 gross domestic product (GDP), and their economy has constricted by more than 50% (Bourgi 2016). In Yemen, the number of casualties has been lower, at an estimated 6500 (World Bank 2017), but the devastation to the population and the country as a whole has likewise been stark. There, almost seven million people are in a state of emergency, a step away from famine, and an additional ten million are deemed in crisis (Roopanarine et al. 2017). Compounding the food insecurity is Yemenâs weak economy, with a GDP that declined by 28% in 2015 and a further 4% in 2016 (World Bank 2018a). Comparison between the two countries requires a brief examination of their respective âbaselinesâ, that is, their level of need prior to the outbreak of violent conflict.
Prior to the outbreak of conflict Syria had an estimated population of just over 21 million, with a net migration rate of â1.2 migrants per 1000 persons (World Bank 2018a). The GDP was estimated at $106.4 billion and the GDP per capita was estimated at $4800 (Countries of the World 201...